(1)Squall Leonhart vs (16)Hat Kid 2018
Ulti's Analysis Some 16 seeds don't deserve to only be 16 seeds. Some do. For the hell of it I went and looked this up. Here is the list of every 16 seed we've ever had in a contest. Servbot, Chop Chop Master Onion, Goemon, Pitfall Harry, AiAi, CATS, Captain Olimar, Raiden, Metal Gear, Secret of Mana, Suikoden 2, Starcraft, CATS, Earthworm Jim, Duke Nukem, Terry Bogard, Thrall, Lightning, Falco, Midna, Prince of Persia, Ridley, Proto Man, Marth, inFamous, Star Ocean 3, Guitar Hero 2, Beyond Good and Evil, Viewtiful Joe, Jet Grind Radio, Timesplitters 2, Wii Sports, Ratchet and Clank 3, Assassin's Creed 2, Age of Empires 2, Phoenix Wright, Hearthstone, Cave Story, Shenmue, Splatoon, Cuphead, Primrose, Ryo Hazuki, Cayde-6, Hat Kid, Rosalina, Miles Edgeworth, and Wesker. If you want to count the 27 seeds (ugh) in that 3way contest, you get Tingle, Dan, Little Mac, Commander Keen, Prinny, Missile, Sandbag, Fawful, and Magikarp. Of that list, here is my opinion on who is actual 16 seed material, and by this I mean comparable to the NCAAs where they have the 16 for a reason and would have no prayer of ever winning a match regardless of opponent. I know with LOL x stats and such we can give almost anyone a win on a technicality, but bear with me here. My list of true 16 seeds: Servbot, Chop Chop Master Onion, Goemon, Pitfall Harry, AiAi, inFamous, Star Ocean 3, Guitar Hero 2, Beyond Good and Evil, Jet Grind Radio, Timesplitters 2, Wii Sports, Age of Empires 2, Hearthstone, Cave Story, Cuphead, Primrose, Cayde-6, Hat Kid, Commander Keen, Prinny, and Missile. A case could be made no one else on that entire list is immune from winning. We saw CATS beat Nathan Drake once. Terry Bogard would probably beat most other characters on this list. Phoenix Wright is a 3 seed every contest and his game just got forgotten about once. I could go on, but you get the point. Here's my point. Hat Kid is on the 'true 16' list and it took Squall almost an hour to get over 70% on him. I don't know who or what a Hat Kid even is and I frankly don't care. There were a lot of smart people who took Zelda to win this division, and I wasn't one of them, and that debate ended right off the bat. Struggling to blow out Hat Kid? Come on bro. Lightning_Strikes's Analysis What happened?: A disappointing Final Fantasy performance? In this contest? Well I never. Squall looked really, really bad at the start of this match, struggling to get over 70% in the first hour. He quickly improved from there, rapidly improving to a tripling where it was more or less steady, but it was still a fairly poor show. Hat Kid looked very frontloaded here, for a while escaping a doubling, and Squall showed the same trends expected of a "modern" FF character. Squall also did better with the registered user vote which is fairly critical for his later matches. What could this mean?: I hope this is the match that hammers home the poor show that FF has given throughout this contest. Before the contest started there was talk of Squall being the new #10 character after Vincent declined. He did worse on Hat Kid than Bowser did on Gordon so that clearly isn't the case (and if it is, lol Gordon). Hat Kid is largely expected to be a bottom five character, we won't know for sure for a little while, but looking at the relative popularity of A Hat in Time I have a very hard time imagining her doing better than certain other characters she would need to beat for Squall to be anywhere near his old strength. Safer777's Analysis Squall is damn strong. Some people said he might even be the strongest character in the bracket. Of course that is a lie but still you get the idea. Hat Kid is a newcomer and she is from an indie game. Obviously pretty easy win for Squall with a tripling. But man Hat Kid is so adorable! Just look at her! Squall is a monster that dares to go hard to such a cutie! But in all seriousness nothing else to say. Man I just want to see a FF main character do good in this contest at least! Maybe Squall will give this to me! Now that I see this analysis...Things have changed! But back then things were simpler... Tsunami's Analysis It's easy to look at this blowout and wonder how Squall managed to get so thoroughly embarrassed two rounds from now, but the answer is that he has a really weak opponent here. The enduring memory I have of Hat Kid's time in this contest is how frequently she was mistaken for a boy and someone had to correct someone else. That sounds like the epitome of obscurity to me. Category:2018 Contest Matches